Tuesday, November 22, 2005
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Would you live on Hooker Alley?
Kleenex writes:
Went to see a new appartment today as I gotta haul & move house next week . . bla bla I meet this real estate guy at the exact address he gave me on the phone . . turns out its one of the nastiest hooker back alleys in town.
The appartment is okay, but my new neighbor would be a 50 something Zsa Zsa Gabor clone who already calls me 'my sweetie' and does oral for 20 I had to wait outside for 10 minutes for the real estate dude to show, just trying to give that "I aint here for a Ho' " look!
Bottom line is . . I need a place BUT . . I might need a break from the sleaze if you catch my drift ? . . The red lights from the lanterns were literally shining through the main window onto the wall . . old guys in raincoats were looking through the window with scrunched up faces.
I just know that the freaks come out at night . . It really is a funny street, there is literally NOTHING other than hookers in windows and . . this apartment! I almost feel like moving in just to freak out my visitors . . I mean right opposite is this big African chick with cross eyes and a big dildo in her hand – it’s surreal.
Anyway, 1) Would YOU live on a hooker alley as a twisted kinda “life study” Just for the hell of it in a “live fast die young” type fashion?
2) Would YOU avoid anything to do with Pimps/Hookers and Junkies and just head for the green and mediocre pastures of The Burbs?
Crude writes:
I lived in somee harry neighborhoods over my lifetime, glad I did, I have leared a lot from that. Venice was not bad, Hollywood on the other hand was nuts. I lived by capitol records, not the best neighborhood.... least not back then. I would go to the corner store and get asked.. "Hey, watchya need?" meaning drugs.... LOL... I said none... I get backl, then whatcha doin here then white boy.... NICE! About a week later, I hear BANG!, BANG! around 2 am, look out my window, there is a guy shooting a shotgun into the apt complex across the street... I call the cops... 45 min to get there. My apt manager had 15 people living in a 1 bedroom apt...
Why Don't I Attract More Weirdos?
One reason I don't have a comments section on my site is that I figure I attract many readers who are as weird as me. Yet, when I meet them, they are usually upstanding citizens.
I believe I have good radar for people and thus I've rarely felt betrayed by someone in whom I've placed confidence. My Torah observance stands like an unwavering bulwark against wickedness.
I have a secular friend who writes a blog and he attracts numerous psychotic women. He lived with one for a few months. He figured I attracted at least as many psychos. But I don't. Never once.
Maybe twice a year I'll have coffee with a reader after we've exchanged a bunch of emails. My main rule in this regard is that I do not take seriously anyone who can't spell and punctuate. I often get emails asking to hang out from people who can't spell. I dismiss them.
I rarely find myself attracted to eccentric women. I'm eccentric enough. I like my women straight.
Nightline Goes Tabloid
But there's another Brit in the Nightline line-up. Hosting from Times Square: Martin Bashir. The Oompa Loompalike guy who brings tabloid tactics to a sublime new level, whose m.o. was exposed and mocked during the Jacko trial, whose reports are hilariously edited to drive his preconceived points home, step by step-- the man who Jacko hired Maury Povich to refute! Bashir's co-anchors? Cynthia McFadden, for years rumoured to be the illegitimate daughter of Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy (a fascinating real-life mystery. Bashir should check on it), and Terry Moran, who looks like the kid from Home Alone.
Make no mistake, these "anchors" and their producers are all tabloid babies, weaned and trained on the prime time tabloid magazines Dateline and 20/20, the phony-edgy news shows that hit all the tabloid topics, pump them up like we used to in the old days, while thumbing their noses at the circus they perform in. A Tabloid Nightline has come to pass.
Ex-Mobster Turned Novelist Sonny Girard
My informant says: "I hate that guy. He tries to come off like a tough guy. I have audiotape and videotape of him [cowering]. When I looked to beat up some people at a restaurant, I brought some Hells Angels with me. I had one of them with a video camera. I ran towards this guy Ronny. Sonny jumped under the table and said, 'Don't hit me.' My friend caught it all on videotape. Any Mob guy would fight me and either get beat up or beat me up. Sonny didn't have any heart. All the guys I ran with in New York, at least they had heart."
Why Are Men Such Beasts?
From the 12th Century's The Art of Courtly Love:
...if you should fall in love with some of their women, be careful to puff them up with lots of praise and then, when you find a convenient place, do not hesitate to take what you seek and to embrace them by force...
That is so wrong.
Excuse me. I need to cool off and go for a walk and learn about John Adams and think about the Constitution.
My First Email From The Forward
I registered with the site years ago. Unlike The Jerusalem Post, which bombards me with spam, the Forward has never emailed me before.
I figured it would be an invitation to weigh in with a learned op/ed about some aching social need, such as America's 80%-plus blowjobless rate. But no, it was something entirely different:
Dear [firstname],
What do you want your kids to learn in science class? Science or fundamentalist religion?
If you live in Kansas, your kids are probably going to get religion as a result of the Kansas Board of Education?s decision last week to open its classrooms to "intelligent design" and creationism?and redefine ?science? itself to discredit evolution. And it?s not just in Kansas. Similar actions are afoot in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Tennessee, Ohio and a growing number of states across the country.
If you want your kids to learn science in science class, please join forces with a coalition of prominent scholars, elected officials, activists and theologians united to roll back the dangerous and growing influence of the religious right. Help the Campaign to Defend the Constitution keep the religious right out of our children?s classrooms.
Just click here to send an e-mail to your governor, asking him or her to ensure that your state's science curriculum and standards continue to teach science, not religion, in the classroom.
Why are pre 20th-Century books less explicit in their rape scenes than ordinary conversation today?
"Because there aren't enough moral leaders to exert their moral influence on ordinary conversation," says a friend.
I asked for her deepest darkest desire. Was it fame? Her reply: "I'm not sure how great my desire for fame is. But my desire to obtain a job at a top 20 research university and publish my first academic book by age 30 is fairly voracious."
I'm looking at, Reading Rape: The Rhetoric of Sexual Violence in American Literature and Culture, 1790-1990. If there was ever a book that could take the fun out of rape, this is it.
Cathy writes: "Did it protest about being ordered into your library? So then did you tell it, "Scream and I'll kill you?""
I admit I ordered it into my library because I was intrigued by the title.
I remember reading 19th Thomas Hardy novels (such as The Return of the Native and Tess of the D'urbervilles) and rereading the supposedly juicy bits and not being able to decipher that there was a rape going on.
Where's the rape in this scene from Charlotte Temple by Susanna Haswell Rowson?
"Now," said Montraville, taking Charlotte in his arms, "you are mine for ever."
"No," said she, withdrawing from his embrace, "I am come to take an everlasting farewel. "
It would be useless to repeat the conversation that here ensued, suffice it to say, that Montraville used every argument that had formerly been successful, Charlotte's resolution began to waver, and he drew her almost imperceptibly towards the chaise.
"I cannot go," said she: "cease, dear Montraville, to persuade. I must not: religion, duty, forbid."
"Cruel Charlotte," said he, "if you disappoint my ardent hopes, by all that is sacred, this hand shall put a period to my existence. I cannot--will not live without you."
"Alas! my torn heart!" said Charlotte, "how shall I act?"
"Let me direct you," said Montraville, lifting her into the chaise.
"Oh! my dear forsaken parents!" cried Charlotte.
The chaise drove off. She shrieked, and fainted into the arms of her betrayer.
'F--- Me Like A Whore!'
Before my life became governed by God's law, I would say things in the throes of passion that I didn't truly believe, such as, "Sweet Jesus Christ" and "I love you."
As a 39-year old man with a colorful past, I've courted many counter-culture chicks and I fear that this has warped my perception of what is normal.
How many normal women ask you to "F--- me like a whore!" while pulling their hair and slapping them (something I've never done)?
I need to know, sweet Jesus Christ.
Jeff writes: "My [Christian] wife likes stuff like that sometimes, and she’s pretty normal. Actually, the majority of married Americans apparently partake in rough sex fairly often, from the research I’ve seen."
A Gaping Literary Hole
I was reading this paper about the demise of Yiddish:
What is it like to be an artist who writes in a dead language? A writer must be read, but what does one do when he cannot be read - when he writes in a language that nobody can read and where there is no interest in translation? This predicament is addressed in Cynthia Ozick's "Envy; or, Yiddish in America." One of Ozick's most notable stories, "Envy" picks up on a truth that has become even more tragic today - the demise of Yiddish as a spoken language in America and how this situation even further imperiled, if not eradicated, Yiddish literature. For without those who spoke and wished to read the poetry of the language, and in the absence of a culture that wished to unlock the mysteries of the language through translation, what would eventually happen to the richness of Yiddish literature?
Ozick's story foretells the death of Yiddish as a spoken language, as well as the death of a Jewish literary genre that contained many unsung literary greats about whom we know little since most were never translated. The story takes place at a time when the secular immersions and flirtations of Philip Roth, Leonard Bernstein, and even Sandy Koufax inspired in Jewish Americans the impulse to abandon the old world and attendant tragedies of Yiddish for the allure and hopefulness of all things English. But this cultural phenomenon was, for Ozick, a touchstone for something larger, and a foreshadowing of a future where an entire vocabulary, and the artists who represented it, would silently vanish. Unfortunately, "Envy" was prescient, and its conclusions even more dire today.
Using Ozick's "Envy" as a starting point, this paper explores the impact that assimilation and translation had on the fall of Yiddish literature and language, and the way in which Jewish writers who wrote in untranslated Yiddish - including Chaim Grade and others like him - died a quiet death in America. In contrast, I. B. Singer, whose work was translated from Yiddish into English, became one of great writers of the twentieth century who even secured a Nobel Prize in Literature, much to the envy and chagrin of other writers of Yiddish literature whose work remained untranslated. For a stark but profoundly human expression of envy, look no further than the experience of Yiddish in America.
In a perceptive nod to the cult of celebrity and the superficiality of fame, "Envy" also addresses the exploitation of history, memory, and identity for personal gain. The conflict between Yiddish writers who were translated and those who were not speaks to the unfairness of art, and the way in which art is often captive of commerce. Indeed, many critics maintain that Singer was not the most talented of the Yiddish writers- that it was simply his voracious appetite for fame and the sexual overtones of his fiction that contributed to his popularity at the expense of other more serious Yiddish writers.
First, I hate the phrase "in which." In all its uses above, it is superflous.
Two. I.B. Singer's Singer's voracious appetite for fame had nothing to do with the demise of yiddish. About one person in five or ten has a voracious appetite for fame but that does nothing to create a demand for them.
I don't think many people become writers unless they have a voracious appetite for fame, unless they write under a well-hidden pseudonym.
Three. If there was a commercial demand for the translation of other yiddish writers, publishers looking to make money would've translated them. There wasn't/isn't because those yiddish writers weren't commercial. Their work didn't inspire a universal demand or sufficiently inspire universal yearnings. Anyone can pick up Singer and enjoy him. Not true with these other blokes as the sales figures attest.
Four. Many of Chaim Grade's books were translated into English. He did not die forgotten. His novel The Yeshiva is the best of its kind (the best novel about Lithuanian mussar yeshivot between the two world wars).
Five. I just Googled "gaping literary hole" and couldn't find one instance of it on the net. I'm floored. I can think of some pretty literary Jewesses I'd love to try that out on in a moment of reckless passion (though nevertheless governed by the immutable laws of the Torah).
Vietnam Flashbacks
The hottest front in the Iraq war is now in Washington. Fred Barnes writes:
MANY HAVE FORGOTTEN HOW THE United States lost in Vietnam, but not former Defense Secretary Melvin Laird. When the last American military unit was withdrawn in 1973, the Viet Cong had been defeated and the North Vietnamese army checkmated. For the next two years, "South Vietnam held its own courageously and respectably against a better-bankrolled enemy," Laird writes in the current Foreign Affairs. "Given enough outside resources, South Vietnam was capable of defending itself." Instead, "we grabbed defeat from the jaws of victory [in 1975] when Congress cut off the funding for South Vietnam that had allowed it to continue to fight on its own. . . . Without U.S. funding, South Vietnam was quickly overrun." It was a stunning and unnecessary defeat for America and for a free Vietnam. And the lesson is clear: A war can be won on the ground overseas and lost in Washington.
Yori Yanover writes:
The question is not whether or not we left Vietnam when we were actually victorious. That's not the point. And neither is it valid to argue that "we lost the war in Washington." We lost Vietnam because we had no good reason to go there in the first place. Because the Domino Theory was a dumb idea. Because there was nothing there worth the lives of 54,000 American soldiers. And the nation rejected with horror this kind of bloodshed for this kind of a puny purpose.
In retrospect, it seems the only real result of Vietnam was the astonishing increase in the size of the military industrial complex and the consequent widening of the gap between rich and poor in America.
Today, when the same MIC is running the show completely, with its thugs Cheney and Rumsfeld still trying to intimidate us with their open threats and shiny boots, it is clear that Vietnam was not a war to be lost or won, it was a means of overtaking this country by a small, extremely rich and powerful junta. They aim to starve our government resources and reduce the US workforce to the same status as its third-world counterparts.
Iraq and Vietnam are made of the exact same mold. Except, it appears the American people are becoming enraged after having lost only some 2000 sons and daughters to it. It's a nice improvement over Vietnam. It gives me hope.
This movie is pure pornography for women. I'd love to hear from a man who loved it.
James Caan Wants To Beat Up Joe Pesci
The National Enquirer is breaking the story this week. There's audiotape.
I will introduce you to the world of the LA Family of La Cosa Nostra. I will not only provide insider information from the Time of Family Boss Jack Dragna, but also of today's Boss Peter "Shakes" Milano. I will uncover the myths and the realities of the Family that was once called The Mickey Mouse Mafia. I will list current members, deceased members and also Associates. Those who came from the East Coast and lost it all in Hollywood. The broken suitcases who were chased by their families back East and found a new life as Hollywood Mafia.
Airbrushing Anti-Semitism -- Chomsky and the Pogroms
John-Paul Pagano writes:
Emma Brockes of the Manchester Guardian interviewed Noam Chomsky a couple of weeks ago. Their exchange is startling for many reasons, not the least of which is a controversy about whether or not Chomsky denied, or simply minimized the moral import of, the massacre of Bosnian Muslims by Serbs in Srebenica. (The Guardian retracted the interview today for two reasons -- one factual but not substantive, and the other due to the headline under which Ms. Brockes' article ran, which she did not write. I believe that Britain's draconian libel laws, and not factual or substantive inaccuracy, are what drove the paper's decision, and I believe that Chomsky's claim that his position on the Serbian atrocities was misrepresented is supported neither by his statements quoted in the interview, nor some of his published writings on the matter. It is telling that Chomsky has conspicuously declined to accuse Brockes of inventing any of his actual quotes; he opts only for making the inspecific charge that she "[invents their] context"].)
What is not captured by any of this, and the reason why I am writing to you, is the fact that Chomsky minimizes another set of atrocities in a different part of the interview: those of the European pogroms against the Jews. Chomsky refers to them as "not very bad, by contemporary standards". This is outrageously false, as an examination of the historical record shows. I have undertaken this examination, and an analysis of Chomsky's attitude toward Israel and Zionism and his general revisionist tendencies. I would be honored if you would take a look at it.
Tammy Bruce Addresses Wednesday Morning Club On Her Third Book - The New American Revolution : Using the Power of the Individual to Save Our Nation from Extremists
Her first book was The New Thought Police: Inside the Left's Assault on Free Speech and Free Minds, then, The Death of Right and Wrong: Exposing the Left's Assault on Our Culture and Values.
I regretted missing the WMC's Thursday breakfast with author (New Glory: Expanding America's Global Supremacy) Ralph Peters until it turned out that Peters, the featured speaker, missed it too. It was the first WMC's first event where the speaker didn't show up without cancelling in advance.
David Horowitz gave the introduction to Tammy. He discussed his trip to a college campus in Florida where the admissions office featured a cartoon of a dog urinating on President Bush and the owner saying, "Good dog."
Horowitz debated a professor of anthropology and asked if it bothered him that there were no conservatives in the department. The professor said no, because anthropology is the study of other cultures and it requires people who are compassionate and tolerant. David replied that that was the most intolerant statement he'd heard all week. "And he didn't get it. He thought only conservatives were intolerant."
The table next to me has several guys who are dressed like bikers (everyone else -- the crowd is about 80 -- is dressed conservatively in business attire).
Tammy: "I'm still a feminist. I'm pro-choice. I'm a lesbian.
"I contend we were in a cultural coma for four decades prior to Sept. 11. When we realized that tomorrow is not guaranteed...
"You see this transformation in the continual drop in circulation for American newspapers... A 50% drop in profits for The New York Times (applause).
"The Left tells us that in each one of us there's a little Hitler that needs to be controlled. I contend there's a little Thomas Jefferson in every single one of us who is now being unleashed.
"We see throughout the world that when the Left begins to fail culturally, it turns to threats, intimidation and violence. We saw violence in last year's election. We see intimidation in them calling the President of the United States, in a time of war, a liar. We see him called a Hitler.
"It's fewer than ten people who make a difference in major issues.
"The core of what it means to be an American is a passion for individual rights. Our nationalism is not based on where we are on the planet.
"To suggest that Arabs can't handle freedom is racist.
"I don't speak as a Christian [and she's not Jewish, she's Italian and Irish in origin], but the divine nature of our nation, and the divine nature of Israeli as our counterpart in that part of the world...
"The more we rely on the government to give us what we need, be it prescription drugs or health care or schooling for our children, you are under someone else's control.
"Europe is collapsing economically and morally because no one cares, no one is invested, no one feels confident about the future... America is the only beacon... The Minuteman project is the best manifestation of [Americans' belief that they can act on their own to solve their own problems]."
Loud applause.
"George W. Bush started calling them names and they didn't care. They didn't need his permission or love."
Tammy hopes for the destruction of such institutions as the IRS, the ACLU, and The New York Times.
"America's actions now are like chemotherapy for the world. The Left's argument that we're creating the terrorists is like saying chemotherapy makes you sick. There's a cancer [terrorism] raging through this planet now. There is no end to this war until the enemy is vanquished."
Tammy asks how many people in the room own firearms. Half the room raises its hand.
Bruce closes with a quote from Thomas Jefferson: "A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun, therefore, be the constant companion of your walks." --Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, 1785. ME 5:85, Papers 8:407
Bruce: "The new war we are fighting is once again based on Jew-hatred. It's always been that way. That's the curse and gift of being the Chosen People. I'm Italian and Irish. I'm not chosen for anything."
Melrose Larry Green asks the first question -- who are the frontrunners for the 2008 president campaign. Tammy says there aren't any. Tammy says she wouldn't consider running for political office.
Tammy takes 25-minutes of questions. She says she's voted for every winning American presidential candidate. "If the Democrats nominate Hillary Clinton, they need more medical marijuana."
All About Dennis
L. writes:
I just discovered you today via Seipp. I don't have a full sense of you, but I am amused by your Dennis Prager analysis. I used to listen to him when I worked from home - I chuckled at your bit about how essentially self absorbed he is even though he protests otherwise. I went to a couple of singles events that he held, but they were torture because one had to sit through a long lecture by Dennis. Even an event intended to help others, ended up being about him.
I got this email:
Dear Luke: My friend and I (we're both single females) were talking last night and the conversation turned to sex. She'd just hooked up with a 26 year old guy this weekend and was kind of surprised that after having sex for quite a while, he never actually "finished." This made her question her "skills" and worry that she wasn't turning him on. So...we got to wondering how long it typically takes you all to "finish" when you're having sex. I know this is a random question, but we're looking for total honesty (which we don't think we'd get from our male friends). Thanks for weighing in! -Polly
Dear Polly:
Don't fear that you are not turning this man on sexually - the penis never lies. If if he attained an erection with you and was able to maintain it for hours on end, then he's very aroused by you. So why doesn't he "finish?" There are several possibilities. Sometimes a man cannot orgasm if he happens to be taking certain medications to even out his moods. (Yup, we men get them all the time!) If that's the case, then patience is in order, for eventually he'll come around. But another explanation is that he might be holding back.
Why do men hold back? Typically, a man will hold back if he has some internal conflict raging in his mind. This, typically, is an affliction only of the intellectual, so you might want to determine if your man is an intellectual, which can be difficult, if he is in the closet about it. Does he read The Atlantic Monthly, or does he have copies of OK! lying about? Examine the walls and bookshelves of his home: does he own more books than he has photographs of himself having fun? Is he religious, or talk about religious matters a lot? Is he Jewish? Does he spend suspiciously much of his free time talking about duties and obligations and sin? Does he refuse to eat certain kinds of food? Then he may well be an intellectual, and thus very sensitive. (Another sign: intellectuals fear going down south to visit Dixie, due to their . . . sensitivities.)
Often these delicate types have abandonment issues (is he the product of a broken home? Did his mother leave his father when he was a young boy?). They fear being hurt, and they fear hurting others. And very often, they fear falling in love.
What you need to do is to spend more time talking about your relationship with him, and where he is willing to to let it go. Encourage him to discuss his inadequacies with you before letting him inside, and demand to know what he is thinking. (Okay, okay, "demand" is too strong a word. Invite him, but accept that perhaps he would rather not.) Once the air has been cleared and you both know what the other is thinking, there will be so many of his sperm marching on your eggs that you will feel like a young Germman woman living in Berlin circa April, 1945.
Do you have questions? I've got answers. Just_ask_luke@yahoo.com
Ta Ta Torah, Hello Love
Chaim Amalek writes:
Interesting juxtaposition of material on your site:"Since there have been mitzvot . . . the hardcore Jews have been doing mitzvot. If Jews didn't care about mitzvot, they slept with the goyim and disappeared from Jewish history. " This is immediately followed by a photograph of the luscious Shiksa Princess Holly in her tub, reading a book with your face on the back cover, looking like she sees something off-camera that you would never permit to be mounted on any of your web sites (but available on VHS for those willing to rummage through the remainder bins of various video emporia). We all know where this leads, Luke. After all, it starts with a date.
It needs to be said again and again - for the Jews to survive in healthy form (by which I mean non-inbred, which excludes the hassidim), either the Jewish people must be ghettoized so that their mating opportunities are restricted to other Jews (and what successful Jewish man wants that?), or the Jewish religion needs to become more welcoming of goyim who bring valuable genetic material to the table. Holly might not be Jewish, but she brings terrific genes to the table. Wouldn't the Jewish people be better off assimilating her eggs than in keeping her out? Just because she doesn't believe doesn't mean that her children would not, if properly raised by a stern yet loving Jewish Father like Luke Ford.
Luke, I'll bet you cannot think of even one Jewish woman in LA who has genes as good as hers who would put up with you and your social condition. Not one. And yet the Torah commands you to be fruitful and multiply. Why limit yourself to the stunted, warped, ingrown world that the orthodox rabbinate has marked out for you? To follow Amalek in this matter is to obey the word of God.
Or I could settle for someone short, fat, and full of demands: "I am 29, 5'4", 150, green eyes, native NYer, looking for an LTR. Are you? I am not very religious but have a strong Jewish Identity and am looking to share that with someone special who feels the same way. Please be JEWISH, single (never married, no kids), no ex-girlfriend waiting in the wings, 29-35 years old ONLY (if you are older please refrain) and 6'0"+."
Judaism And Technology
While Jews conserve their own customs, they're free to innovate in other ways (financially, technologically, etc).
I discussed with a friend on IM today about how new technology affects religion. My primary belief is that today everbody must be more responsible because they never know when they will be blogged.
Judaism has a long elite tradition. Rabbi Akiva will say something, and then for 1800 years, other rabbis will comment on his words. With blogging, this discussion is opened up (one reason some rabbis do not like it).
While some haredi (fervently religious) rabbis have banned the internet, overall, Orthodox Judaism has been much more active on the net than non-Orthodox Judaism. I love to listen to Torah lectures and there are far more Orthodox ones available (through such sites as shiur.net and 613.org).
Judaism wants the use of technology (as with everything else in life) controlled by Jewish law and values. Judaism is not inherently anti-technology.
If technology makes the performance of various tasks easier, that is a good thing because it frees one up to do more mitzvos (divine commandments). That's more trips to grandma, more visiting of the sick, more trips to shul to daven with a minyan.
The only drawing back to researching Torah on the internet as opposed to the Beit Midrash is that you don't have the in-person human interaction.
Judaism has always assimilated those goyisha things that benefit and propagate Judaism.
Judaism has never been about open-mindedness, nor any religion.
>Can we still be chosen people if computers can replace us?
The essential human questions will never be replaced by computers or anything -- meaning of life, love etc.
> Will orthodoxy ever accept minyanim online?
Never. In some matters, Orthodoxy demands tangibility.
>Isnt doing mitzvot a modern leisure now that we can afford it?
No, Avraham our father did some mitzvot such as circumsicion. Since there have been mitzvot (since the giving of the Torah at Sinai 3200 years ago), the hardcore Jews have been doing mitzvot. If Jews didn't care about mitzvot, they slept with the goyim and disappeared from Jewish history. Only Jews who kept the Sabbath perpetuated Jewish history. Rabbi Adlerstein relates the anecdote that when the direct descendents of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (founder of Modern Orthodoxy in Germany in the 19th Century) gathered in the 1990s, there were over 2000 of them. Meanwhile, the direct descendents of Reform Rabbi Isaac Mayer (father of Reform Judaism in America) Wise only numbered about a dozen. I don't believe there are any identifying Jews left from the assimilated Jewish families who found the Bnai Brith.
XXX-Communicated: A Rebel Without A Shul
I'm not really into Country Music (save for looking over their women), but...
Don't forget to have the sound on for this anti-Bush musical treat.
Chaim Amalek writes:
I think liberal screeds like this slide show/song wrongly state the case and actually helps Bush, just as the excesses of the Hippie movement acted to prolong our involvement in the wars of Indochina. My brief against Bush is not based on any dewy-eyed concern for the snail darter (remember that one?) or mistaken belief in the inherent goodness of most of the rest of the world, but on solid conservative beliefs and the sharp contrast to those beliefs provided by Mister Bush's actions:
1. America should not invade another country unless it is absolutely necessary. The invasion of Iraq was not. Bush was honestly (I will give him that) mistaken in his interpretation of intelligence in the run-up to the war in Iraq. As it turned out (and contrary what most on Capitol Hill and in the intelligence community thought), Saddam did not have a meaningful program in place to develop weapons of mass destruction.
2. Ditto the connection to al Qaeda. But both of these were honest mistakes (Afghanistan was not), if terrible in consequence. Now Bush defends the decision to invade Iraq as justified by the general value of human freedom. But lots of lands are not free - are we to invade them all? The cause of Iraqi freedom is not worth the blood of our sons and daughters in uniform. If Bush thinks the cause of freedom alone is so compelling, why doesn't he invade Cuba? (A question for which historians have yet to extract an answer from the apologists for the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, who rather than liberate nearby Cuba from the red tyranny of Castro, chose instead to fight communism half way around the world in Vietnam.)
3. An insufficiently nationalistic economic/trade policy. Just look at the trade deficits we are running up with China, and the effect this is having on our industrial base. China is becoming the leading industrial power on earth, thanks partly to Bush's dithering and cluelessness.
4. Insane levels of government (non-defense) spending. This man Bush puts LBJ to shame for his reckless spending and assumption of vast future claims on our tax dollars. (His new prescription drug program will cost over a trillion dollars, none of which he has bothered to fund.) Subject to the check of a conservative Republican opposition, no Democrat would dare propose such programs these days and if he did, no Democrat would get away with it.
5. He has contrived to provide America with a military that is too small to do all that is being demanded of it, from hurricane relief to nation building. His chosen architect of this policy, Rumsfeld, reminds me of a teenage girl who no matter how thin she gets, sees only fat when she looks in the mirror. If another war breaks out (North Korea?), we will not be able to respond.
6. The real nuclear threats - Iran and North Korea - continue to grow unchecked.
7. Bush has chosen not to defend our borders against incursion from the third world, specifically Mexico. Bush seems to feel that you just can't have too many Mexican illegals around to suppress the wages of American citizens and crowd us out of our communities, schools, hospitals and off of our roads, and that the best solution to this problem is to define it away by making them legal. Of course, this vast human tide (900,000 per year!) also gives the Enemy cover sufficient to infiltrate entire armies into the United States if they wish. To permit this in time of war is treason, as it gives the Enemy aid and comfort. George W. Bush is a traitor to the Republic.
The time has come for brave Republicans on Capitol Hill to move for his impeachment and trial.
AUSTRALIA is on its way to Germany. On its way to the World Cup for the first time in 32 years.
At 10.45pm last night, after two agonising hours of football, Adelaide-born John Aloisi stepped forward with 12 yards between him and a long-dreamed-of destiny. He steadied, kicked and 80,000-plus people leapt into the air. They screamed, they cried, they hugged each other and they danced. A dream had come true. The Socceroos had won 4-2 on penalties.
Actor John Travolta added football fan to his list of credentials by joining the sea of green and gold at the stadium. Whether he knows anything of the code or not, at least he will be able to say: "I was there when the Socceroos made history."
Anthony Pellicano To Be Released From Jail Soon?
I understand that Pellicano will be released despite the multiple pending indictments.
The Last Days By Joel C. Rosenberg
I found it a good read, but one section of this thriller (on page 160) bothered me. Rabbi Akiva Ben David reflects: "Without the shedding of blood, there could be no forgiveness of sin."
This is nonsense. No rabbi or informed Jew believes such nonsense, yet this is the motivation for the rabbi to try to blow up the mosque on the Temple Mount.
There's nothing in the Hebrew Bible or the Jewish religion which requires the shedding of blood for the forgiveness of sin. That sort of cannibalistic talk is pure paganism and Christianity.
Now, many readers will say, "What about the sacrificial system?" There's nothing in the sacrificial system that says there's no forgiveness of sin without it. And the Hebrew Bible clearly describes hundreds of years when people did not have a temple and sacrificial system and yet there was still forgiveness of sin.
"Dear Luke: Why am I still single? I'm pretty, run five miles a day, and have an amazing career and friends to match. I can cook, clean, and am tops in the bedroom. Yet men just don't seem interested in a fabulous woman like me. What am I doing wrong?"
I don't really know, but I can tell you that there are certain traits/habits that for most men are just plain deal busters. So, gentle gentile distaff readers, just don't be/do the following:
1. Ball busters. We men hate them.
2. Body odor. Some women need to bathe and shower more carefully. And take care not to let Dixie get out of hand.
3. Bad breath. Sure, a Harvard law degree is nice, but seldom does it compensate for bad breath.
4. Too much fat. Most men like fertile-looking women, not women who look like they've already been impregnated by another man.
5. Smokers. See point 3 above.
6. Angry women. Life's too short to be stuck with one of these.
7. Careerists. I don't really care what you do for a living, so long as it does not make you miserable.
8. Feminists. Men and women were made by God to occupy different, though complementary, roles in life. Feminism pretends otherwise.
9. Age. Ladies, if you wait too long you will get too old to appeal to men like me, men who can readily win the favors of much younger women. Don't wait too long; learn to settle for "Mr. Good Enough" instead of holding out for "Mr. Perfect."
That's a start, Maureen. Print out and study this list in the company of some of those fabulous friends of yours.
Do you have a question? Luke has an answer: just_ask_luke@yahoo.com
Diane Dimond's book: Be careful who you trust
Diane Dimond is no friend of 'Tabloid Baby'-- or freedom of the press.
Diane used to be a tabloid television reporter. The author of 'Tabloid Baby' used to be her boss. He wrote scripts for her, fed her lines and helped "create" her as a tabloid TV star.
But when 'Tabloid Baby' was released six Novembers ago, Diane led the media boycott of the book. She was hosting a CNBC show with Geraldo Rivera at the time. She didn't like the way she was portrayed in the book, so she stopped the author from appearing on NBC shows.
My interview with Burt Kearns.
My Singleton Status, Whips, and My Putative Shiksa Obsession
A reader writes to Luke: "If you have all the answers, I have a question for ya: why can't you find a good woman who wants to marry you?;)"
The secular woman who posed this question does not understand my situation because she views the world through the prism of her own "me" oriented atheistic creed, a creed in which the needs of the individual come first, second, and generally last as well. Had I lived my life to this point according to this creed, I would by now be married, as over the years a number of conventionally good women have telegraphed their matrimonial interest in me. But I have chosen a different path in life - "derech Torah"- one in which the dictates of Torah trump the carnal desires and feelings of the moment, and it is by that measure that I have yet to find success. The women of valor whom I so often sought to be my wife generally did not want to have an impoverished Luke Ford for a husband, and the beautiful strong smart blonde gentile women who have from time to time thrown themselves at the foot of my tallis have, well, not been Jewish. I am still single because I have placed the commandments of God before the urges of my flesh. Yes, from time to time I can be seen squiring this or that shiksa around town, but rest assured, my critical readers, that I do this for the same reason that a Christian flagelant or a Shiite Muslim mortifies his flesh with a whip: to temper my own flesh with the heat of temptation to which I have trained myself never to succumb. So when you see me out and about in what might appear to be pleasant if compromising situations, know this: I am suffering.
Do you have a question? I've got an answer. Write to just_ask_luke@yahoo.com about anything concerning human relationships, romance, the Torah, Christian eschatology, politics, or Hollywood celebrity culture. If I don't know the answer, odds are that one of my friends does (a thousand blessings to Chaim and Rabbi Gadol). Just keep it clean, and try to tie it all in to the main topic of this blog: wholesome heterosexual relationships between men and women.
Link to this blog and I will pray for you. Really. I spend lots of time in prayer, and believe that I could stay even better focused if I were to pray for real people with real problems. All I ask in return is that you link to this blog and extol its virtues, and I will do the same for you before God.
Fruit of the Earth
A friend writes: "Use FRUIT OF THE EARTH - Cocoa&Shea butter ($8 at Walmart) - it gets rid of scars on the face and other parts."
Is this true?
Is It Weird For Your GF To Have Pics Of Her Previous Boyfriend All Round The House?
My friend has been dating this girl for three weeks (the time she broke up with her previous boyfriend). He's discomfitted that she has pictures of him around the house still and on her screensaver on her laptop. He's brought this up with her several times and the pictures are slowly disappearing but he still keeps running into them. She says she won't be seeing her ex anymore. My friend feels jealous and insecure.
'No Rules But No Smoking'
I went to a party Saturday night and the PA guy said "There are no rules, except no smoking." Doesn't that sum up America today?
Granted, it was a party of moral leaders who have internalized such a strong sense of moral law that they don't do wrong, but still...
Moustapha Akkad And The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion
The media is puffing up Arab filmmaker Moustapha Akkad, who talked to me in an interview three years ago about how the notorious anti-Semitic forgery Protocols of Zion was the real deal.
Chaim Amalek: but Luke - Protocols IS real.
Chaim Amalek: I go to their montly meetings
Chaim Amalek: We meet at the grave of Judah Benjamin
Chaim Amalek: But sometimes we meet by the grave of Lew Wasserman when we have our west coast meetings.
Chaim Amalek: catered, of course. And oh how we laugh at the goyim!
For Arabs, a Man of Renown in Hollywood
'Halloween' producer, slain in Jordan terror attack, depicted Islam positively in other work.
Within Hollywood, Moustapha Akkad was the little-known producer of the "Halloween" horror movie series.
But within the Arab American world, he was the famous filmmaker whose movies defied stereotypes and portrayed Islam in a positive light.
The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion
I met producer Moustapha Akkad at his Century City office March 26, 2002. Among many subjects, we talked about Jewish control of the media.
Moustapha: "The media runs the world. Absolutely. No tanks or planes. The media and the public companies. This is what The Protocols of [the Learned Elders of] Zion [is all about].
"The Zionists, last century, were persecuted in Europe. So they immigrated to the United States. They had a target. They were united. And they did not permit [statements] critical of Zion. They went all the way to control the world and to control the minds of the people through the media. There's a lesson to learn from them.
"They have control of the media here. We know it. They did not do it through tanks or machine guns. They planned of course. They united. Did you see Pat Buchanan's book [The Death of the West: How Dying Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Country and Civilization]? He makes sense."
Luke: "Yes, he's a sharp guy. He doesn't mind telling it like it is, no matter how controversial."
Moustapha: "There is a red line if I get into the issue of Israel but the Jews, like everyone else, wants to make money. Hollywood is not ethnic. There's English, Irish, Spanish, French, Roman..."
Luke: "But movie and TV producers are 70% Jewish."
Moustapha: "Yes. The studios are. That control is financial but not the creative aspect. You can't be more Jewish than Miramax [owned by Disney and operated by Bob and Harvey Weinstein, distributed last two Halloween films]. They financed me and I did it. But probably if I did something about Israel, they would not. So I get financing from overseas, such as when I did The Message."
Read this Anti-Defamation League link on Jews in Hollywood, and the Protocols of Zion.
Moustapha is best known for producing the eight movies of the Halloween franchise. He also directed two movies about the Arab-Islamic world, which have made him a hero in that part of the world - 1976's The Prophet and 1980's The Lion of the Desert.
I found these interesting links about Akkad on the net:
From Kult Movie Maximus: "Moustapha Akkad?", you might wonder. "Wasn't he the guy that produced John Carpenter's Halloween series and never done anything else?" Well yes and no. Akkad is a Syrian-born filmmaker who has two ambitious epic films to his name. His first, the relatively forgotten film The Message, detailing the coming of Mohammed and the Koran, was understandably a huge success worldwide. Over the next four years, Akkad somehow persuaded Libyan dictator Molomar Qaddafi (sp?) to invest $35 million dollars into the sweeping war epic Lion of the Desert... which upon its release grossed about $1 million dollars worldwide. One of the largest financial disasters in history, though one of the greatest films I've seen... how does this make sense? Beats me..."
From Laurie Goodstein's article in the November 1, 1998 New York Times: After years of virtual invisibility, Arab-Americans are finally finding prominence in Hollywood movies -- as terrorists and villains. They are only the latest in a long line of ethnic groups and nationalities cast in stereotypical bad-guy roles, from American Indians to Germans to Japanese to African Americans to Russians.
"We cannot say there are no Arab and no Muslim terrorists," said Moustapha Akkad, an Arab-American producer and director who was born in Syria and who has worked in Hollywood for 45 years. "Of course there are.
"But at the same time, balance it with the image of the normal human being, the Arab-American, the family man," Akkad said. "The lack of anyone showing the other side makes it stand out that in Hollywood, Muslims are only terrorists."
Earlier in his career, Akkad produced and directed two films portraying Muslims as heroes. "The Message" (1977) told the story of the beginning of Islam, and "Lion of the Desert" (1981) starred Anthony Quinn as the real-life Bedouin leader Omar Mukhtar, who fought Mussolini's invading troops in the deserts of Libya. But Akkad said that raising money for such films was difficult, and that to achieve financial success and creative freedom, he had had to turn to another genre. He is now better known as the executive producer of all seven movies in the "Halloween" horror series, the most recent, "Halloween H2O," released in August.
................
Moustapha carries himself in a regal way and he speaks slowly and confidently.
Moustapha: "I was born and raised in Aleppo, Syria. I wanted to be a film director in Hollywood. That was the joke of the town. We were an average family. My father worked as a government employee in customs. My father said, 'If you want to go, I can not really help you.' I had an American theater arts teacher Douglas Hill and he got me into UCLA. In 1954, when I was 18, I came to the airport to leave. My father said goodbye and put $200 in one pocket and a copy of the Koran in the second pocket. 'That's all I can give you.'
"I attended UCLA for four years and graduated in 1958. At the time, UCLA had the best film program. They had three productions per semester. USC at the time was not as rich as UCLA and the cinema department was smaller. If you wanted to do a film, you loaded up your station wagon and went to shoot. The New Wave [of filmmaking] developed at the time. The more realistic documentary approach to filmmaking. I wanted to expose myself to that and I went to USC for three years for my Masters.
"Then I started the starvation period. I applied to the seven giant studios for work and all TV studios and all advertising agencies for a job... Then [Director] Sam Peckinpah wanted to do a movie about the Algerian revolution. So he approached UCLA to help him find a consultant, somebody from that area who speaks the language. They gave him my name and we got started. Then Algeria got its independence and the project was canceled.
"He took a liking to me. He was developing a movie for MGM called Ride the High Country. He asked me to work with him. I was not paid. He always used to tell me to start from the top. 'You went to school for seven years. You can't go to work as a messenger boy. Sit down and write something.'
"I used to sit down and write every day and I'd bring it to him. He'd take it, read it and tear it up. I had applied everywhere for work and I always got the same question, 'What have you done?'
"I remember from my days at UCLA, I used to be invited into American homes. And they always ask you, 'What do you think of the American food?' 'What do you think of the American woman?' 'What do you think about American education?' Everything you think about America, they like to know. I thought that would be a good subject to do a program on - how others see us.
"I made a small presentation to three TV stations to bring an African, European, Asian, and Latin American foreign student, with an American moderator and a different topic every week... The CBS and NBC both wanted it as a public affairs program on Sunday afternoons. NBC offered me $400 a week but no credit. CBS offered me $100 a week and the producer credit.
"So I went to Sam Peckinpah and I told him about my two offers. He asked which one I was going to take. I said, 'NBC.' He replied, and I've never forgotten, 'You sonofabitch. What do you want the money for? Take the credit.' I took the CBS offer.
"Now that I was a producer at CBS, I could call anybody and they'd return my call. I called United Artists and sold them a syndicated travel show, Caesar's World, hosted by Caesar Romero. Every week we traveled to a different country.
"I always advise anyone who aspires to be in this business Sam Peckinpah's advice. When you have something that somebody likes, play dumb on the money aspect. Tell them to talk to your lawyer or agent. But never compromise on the credit."
Luke: "How did you come to make your 1976 book The Message [about the founder of Islam, the prophet Mohammed]?"
Moustapha: "I was making documentaries all over the world. I thought I needed to do something about Islam, which is not understood. At first I thought I'd make a documentary. Then I met Irish scriptwriter Harry Craig. He convinced me we should do it as a feature. I was able to raise the money from the Arab world."
Luke: "How was it received?"
Moustapha: "It was received fantastic but it was not American commercial [fare] for two reasons. You can not see the prophet. I get upset when I see Jesus or Moses portrayed by an actor. To me, you don't touch these things. The film is about Mohammed but he's not portrayed. Therefore, the camera takes subjective angles. It's good for those who know the religion. The movie was a big hit on video.
"Then two years later, I got into another one."
Luke: "How did you raise the money from Moahmar Khaddafy for Lion of the Desert?"
Moustapha: "It was easy. I had the credentials now. And the subject pertained to the Italian occupation of Libya. I had the freedom to work with the material. It was not religious, where you can't show this, you can't say this..."
Luke: "Why do you think it didn't do better at the box office?"
Moustapha: "Publicity about Khaddafy hurt. They politicized it. The critiques [of the film] were good. I believe in the audience. If the audience do not come, I can not [boost the film]."
Luke: "Who distributed the film?"
Moustapha: "This is another thing. We had a hard time finding a distributor because of Khaddafy, prejudice, whatever... United Artists distributed it [around the time of the Heavens Gate debacle]."
Luke: "How did you connect with Director John Carpenter in 1977 to make the first Halloween movie?"
Moustapha: "I was busy doing Lion of the Desert. He said he wanted to make a movie for $300,000. I laughed. You get worried when the budget is high or low. I asked him about the story. He told it to me in four words and I grabbed it. He said, 'Baby sitter to be killed by the boogie man.' The baby sitter part grabbed me because every kid in America knows what a baby sitter is. I told him, 'Let's do it.' I was spending $300,000 a day on Lion of the Desert. I gave John points [percentage of the gross receipts] so he made lots of money afterwards.
"The movie came in on budget. It was John Carpenter's movie. I saw the commercial aspect to it. We distributed it theater by theater, state by state. We made so much money we couldn't believe it."
Luke: "You must've funded it with pocket change from Lion of the Desert."
Moustapha: "Yes. Then two years later, 1980, Dino DeLaurentiis came to me wanting to do a sequel. I said, 'Sequel? This is not television. It's not going to make any money.' They said, 'We'll give you the profit in advance.' So they did and we made Halloween II. It did good. I couldn't believe it.
"They came again. They said, 'Let's do Halloween III.' I said, 'No way.' They said, 'This time we will change it a bit. We will do one without Michael Myers.' I wasn't for it, but I was outvoted. I said ok. That was the big mistake. It was a big flop.
"Then I brought back Michael Myers and the basics, and Halloween IV was a big hit, perhaps the biggest hit [of the franchise]. We made the most money on Halloween I, the biggest box office on Halloween H2O [VII] but we had the most paying customers for Halloween IV.
"Drunk with our success, we did Halloween V a year later. And that was a mistake. A few years later, Miramax came with an attractive offer to do Halloween VI. Due to recent events, we're coming out with Halloween VIII in July.
"This Halloween [series] is a blessing. I feel like a father. Everybody wants to come chop the head of Michael Myers but I love this guy. I always try to keep to realistic stories. Somebody falling from the sky with ten ears and ten eyes isn't scary. But if you're locked inside a house and there's somebody there who wants to kill you, that could happen to anybody. You can relate.
"Why do people pay money to get scared? I asked my 17-year old son. He said, 'Dad, I take a girl with me to the cinema. After five minutes, I'm either grabbing her or she's grabbing me.'
"[Actor] Donald Pleasance was asked by the press if we he was going to keep doing Halloween movies. He answered, 'No way. I'm going to stop at 22.' And that's my answer too.
"With H2O, we chopped off his [Michael Myers] head. But was it really his head?
"This is something where you cater to the kids. Eighty percent of the audience now is kids. Home entertainment has become so sophisticated with the large screen, stereo, satellite, DVD, you can watch any movie a few months later. You can stretch your legs, smoke, drink. So why should adults bother to drive to see a movie? Kids have to go for dating and meeting. At my age [66 yo], you start losing touch.
"When my teenagers talk, I have a hard time understanding sometimes. We were casting Halloween 8. The director [Rick Rosenthal] suggested Busta. Do you know who Busta is?"
Luke: "No."
Moustapha: "I went home and asked my son about Busta. He lit up. 'Busta Rhymes?' He went crazy. I called the office and said, OK, get Busta Rhymes.' He's one of those rap singers with the hair..." And Moustapha fingers curl around the air above his head.
"We got him. Every time we shoot, kids gather around the studio. Another actor suggested was Tyra Banks. Do you know Tyra Banks?"
Luke: "I think I've heard the name."
Moustapha: "See? You're getting grey hair already. Again I went home and asked my kids. [Their voices filled with excitement.] 'Tyra Banks? I'd marry her.' Tyra Banks is a black model who appears in underwear ads.
"When we test the movie, we bring kids. I've lost touch... All I do is preserve the storyline and the atmosphere of horror. But as for casting..."
Luke: "How come you are the one person on all eight Halloween movies? Do you own the franchise?"
Moustapha: "Yeah. I paid for the first one. I guess it's a blessing. I didn't intend to sequels. But I had my lawyer read the contract and they put everything in... At the time, I didn't think of it.
"I spend 90% of my time on the Halloween franchise. If I am to direct, I only want to direct epic historic films. My favorite director when I was a child was Alfred Hitchcock. And then David Lean. I met him while I was student and he gave me advice. I'm now preparing an epic on Saladin and the Crusades, starring Sean Connery. We have a script. Financing is the issue.
"I love history. The best movies are comedies but I'm not good at that. I cannot direct a Western. You have to be able to live it to be able to direct it. Produce it, you can."
Luke: "The current atmosphere post September 11, is that good or bad for your Saladin film?"
Moustapha: "It is very good because Saladin exactly portrays Islam. Right now, Islam is portrayed as a terrorist religion. Because a few terrorists are Muslims, the whole religion has that image. If there ever was a religious war full of terror, it was the crusades. But you can't blame Christianity because a few adventurers did this. That's my message. Always there are fanatics but Saladin protected freedom of religion and different holy places. My sources on Saladin are all from the West. They all admit the chivalry of Saladin. The BBC did a beautiful four hours on the Crusades."
Luke: "Are there other Islamic filmmakers?"
Moustapha: "No. There are Arabic Christians like Mario Kassar."
Luke: "What is it like being a Muslim in Hollywood?"
Moustapha: "No. American citizenship is not an ethnic nationality. I practice my religion more freely here than I could anywhere in the Arab and Muslim world. Here it is not the rule of the majority but the rule of the constitution. Atheist lady Madelyn O'Hair sued the government and the next day, when she won, government schools were not allowed to mention the name of God. You get waves of hatred. You don't blame people after September 11 from having certain feelings against a certain group. That's normal. I was upset about it. Sometimes I am afraid to ride on a plane with someone [who looks like a young fundamentalist Muslim].
"We're living in a free society ruled by a constitution. The United States is like a corporation. The US is the true United Nations. The whole world is represented here. We all have shares. How influential you are depends on how hard you work. But at the end, the media runs the world. Absolutely. No tanks or planes. The media and the public companies. This is what The Protocols of [the Learned Elders of] Zion [is all about].
"The Zionists, last century, were persecuted in Europe. So they immigrated to the United States. They had a target. They were united. And they did not permit [statements] critical of Zion. They went all the way to control the world and to control the minds of the people through the media. There's a lesson to learn from them.
"They have control of the media here. We know it. They did not do it through tanks or machine guns. They planned of course. They united. Did you see Pat Buchanan's book [The Death of the West: How Dying Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Country and Civilization]? He makes sense."
Luke: "Yes, he's a sharp guy. He doesn't mind telling it like it is, no matter how controversial."
Moustapha: "There is a red line if I get into the issue of Israel but the Jews, like everyone else, wants to make money. Hollywood is not ethnic. There's English, Irish, Spanish, French, Roman..."
Luke: "But movie and TV producers are 70% Jewish."
Moustapha: "Yes. The studios are. That control is financial but not the creative aspect. You can't be more Jewish than Miramax [owned by Disney and operated by Bob and Harvey Weinstein, distributed last two Halloween films]. They financed me and I did it. But probably if I did something about Israel, they would not. So I get financing from overseas, such as when I did The Message.
"My base, really, is England. I have a studio there, Twickenham. It's not under my name. I did all of my work [on the two films he directed]. My crew was mostly English. The best crews are English."
Akkad's produced such other films as Sky Bandits, Appointment With Fear and Free Ride [1986].
Luke: "How do you feel about being best known for the Halloween films?"
Moustapha: "Only with kids. The adults haven't seen it. But when I'm around kids, I feel good. How I feel depends where I am. When I am with kids, I feel like a king because of Halloween. With adults, they might know me for Lion of the Desert. Within the Arab-Muslim world, I am really big because they see me [as one of them] who's made it in Hollywood."
Luke: "Have you encountered much discrimination as a Muslim in Hollywood?"
Moustapha: "No. I make it very clear. I am proud of it. I don't try to hide it. Many suggested that I change my name. I would not. I respect other religions - Jewish, Christian, atheist... When I see somebody who, because he got married, changes his religion, I lose respect for him. One who's proud of his roots and his heritage, I respect.
"This is something that I practice in my home. When I lock the door in the morning and I leave the house, I am 100% American in my thinking, working... This is where I earned my education, my living, and my faith. Who's going to touch this country? Forget carrying the flags. Look at it from a practical point of view. I live here. My kids live here. My grandchildren live here. So I want security for this country America. It's a matter of practicality, not religion. I am open about it but I have never faced any [discrimination] that I know of. You might find something but I didn't feel it."
Luke: "Did you put a flag on your car after September 11th?"
Moustapha: "No. I hate this flag waving. People who fly a flag are trying to hide something. Why should I fly a flag? America is not a flag. It's a country with a constitution. And anything that affects this country, automatically affects me. I think these terrorists, the Taliban, are a bunch of animals. I thought of them as animals when they blew up those [ancient Buddhist] statutes. I wanted at the time to go hit them."
Luke: "Did you feel any moral qualms about taking funding from Moahmar Khaddafy?"
Moustapha: "No. It all depends on what I do with it. If he put conditions... If I served his regime... At the end, he wanted to make a film about him and his revolution. I turned it down. I don't care where the financing comes from. It's what you make out of it. I can get it from anywhere."
Luke: "Even Osama Bin Laden?"
Moustapha: "I'd take the money from him. But what I do with it, that's what counts. I would correct his outlook and his animalistic approach to the whole religion."
Luke: "And where is your family?"
Moustapha: "I have one sister and one brother in Syria. I have three brothers here. I have four kids, three boys. My son Malek is my big help. He just finished his own film, Psychic Murders. He shot it on digital video. He's accomplished more at his age than I accomplished at that age. I had to earn a living. I told him that he's deprived of the pleasure I have [from struggling]. When I own a car, it's [the fulfillment of] a big dream. When he wants a car, he gets a car."
Friday Night Live
My friend Evan (from my Aish Ha Torah days) was walking into Friday Night Live and cantor Craig Taubman starts interviewing him in front of about 500 people.
"And on what subject will you be speaking on later tonight?" Craig asked.
"My first time," said Evan.
That got a big nervous laugh.
It was Evan's first time to Friday Night Live.
"You deserve a free [Friday Night Live] CD," said Craig, and went to the bima and got a CD and gave it to Evan.
"Or you could take a chance on what's behind the door," said Rabbi David Wolpe, indicating the ark, which contains the Torah scrolls.
Afterwards, ex-CIA-girl-turned-publicist Emily said my favorite girl was not here (fellow publicist Melanie).
Emily berated me for not writing about her on my blog.
"You never give me anything to work with," I complain.
A few minutes later, she's gone and she doesn't even say goodbye.
Beth Lapides and her friend Taylor Negron do stand-up comedy after services. They bomb. They do predictable anti-Republican jokes and repeatedly use the "f-word" while urging us to fill our lives with love.
"Love" is often the secularist's alternative to a moral code.
Chaya asks Luke: "Why do so many Jewish men date shiksas?"
What syphillus was to the gentile of 16th century Europe, interdating and intermarriage is to us now.
The heartbreak of the interdating Jewish man or Jewess is one with which I am familiar, both as victim and as perpetrator. And make no mistake, the victimhood is always kayful (that's a transliteration of the Amaraic word meaning "double"). When say, a Jewish person is dating a gentile, the first victim is his own soul, which dies with every kiss of the gentile's lips. But also victimized is the oppositely gendered Jew of valor, who it is mathematically certain has thereby been denied the love of another Jew due to these talmudically treasonous doings. No, interdating (the necessary precursor to, G-d forbid, intermarriage) is NOT a victimless crime.
So given the pain and misery that results from say, a Jewish man "knowing" a tall, gorgeous, accomplished, fun-behind-closed-doors-and-in-public, blonde, strong, healthy, fertile, smart shiksa, why would he even think of doing it? I blame it on rejection: there is only so much of it that even a torah-centric Jewish man can take, especially from Jewish women. I happen to know a Jewish man - let me call him "Fischel" - who has spent years trying to find himself a jewish wife, only to be turned down each time by her husband. (Badaboom! Sorry, it is early, and the yetzer hora made me type that. See what dating a shiksa will do to a man?) No, seriously, I mean he's been unable to find a proper jewish woman to marry him because he has little in the way of material possessions, save for a few books on Judaism, modest clothes, and a large van that saw better days when it ferried PG&E workers to and from gas leaks. He made it to age 39 without ever knowing the love of a Jewish woman, so when a shiksa - and a young, smart, beautiful shiksa at that - made it known that SHE, of all people, was interested in him, what do you think happened? His moral debasement has been severe. First, he turned to drugs (first Zoloft to deal with the pain of rejection by his own, and then to Cialis to deal with the challenges of acceptance by the Other), and then he turned to her. He confides that even when he and she are having intimate conversations in the dark about such things as interest female goyim, he closes his eyes and thinks of Israel's need for secure borders to keep the goyim out. (Obviously, Fishel cannot be in favor of borders that will keep Jewish men out as we wades across this metaphysical Rio Grande of desire.) He thinks of the various 613 commandments that he still obeys. And then he thinks of all the Jewish women who previously turned him down when they were young and fertile, and who now must wish that they had not. And then he smiles, and enjoys the moment.
To the man who takes his religion seriously, this is all twisted and inverted. Physical love for a woman and commitment to the oral and written laws of Torah ought never be in conflict and when they are, the former must give way to the latter. With these words, the world is put on notice.
(I wish to thank Rabbi Gadol, who is called that for many good reasons, for helping me collect my thoughts and form them into these words.)
Got a question for me? I've got an answer for you. Just write to me at just_ask_luke@yahoo.com and learn, grow, live.
Must a Man Have a Large Penis to Win the Heart of a Beautiful Woman?
I'm proof that he need not. By the time a man gets to be my age, he has had the heartbreak of having had coitus with a number of women (in my case, six) that never made it to anything more substantial than an evanescent moment or two of temporal pleasure. One thing I've learned from these sorrowful experiences is that penis size does not matter, at least so long as his penis size lies within one or two standard deviations of the mean. Women are attracted to a man for many reasons: his steely gaze; his rip-chord thighs; his boyishe and goyishe charms; and, sadly (in the case of the shallow women one meets at Jewish singles events in Los Angeles) his bank balance and material possessions. But not by the size of his penis. While I'm all man and man enough to having given joy to some amazingly beautiful women, not one of them ever selected me on the basis of my penile dimensions. Ditto famous swordsman Bill Clinton, with whom I share more than just a winning smile masking a super-keen mind (although not a common desire to go down south in Dixie). As the Eastern Sage AMALEK has put it, "By the time a woman gets to see a guy's dick, she has long since made up her mind about where it will end up, so having a large penis is of no importance."
Women of quality prefer a man with a modest endowment, as they know such men try harder, and Luke only dates women of quality.
Crime Statistics from the Dept. of Justice
From a posting to Craig's List (pers-110508803@craigslist.org, the posting is unchanged even though it uses language that I do not use, the statistics, according to the best I can see, do check out, that I post this does not mean I approve and support everything in it):
Blacks "were 7 times more likely than whites to commit homicide in 1998" http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/race.htm
Blacks are four times more likely than Whites to kill their children http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/kidsrates.txt
28% of black males go to jail, vs. 4.4% of White males http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/crimoff.htm
68.7% of blacks are born out of wedlock http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/pdf/nvsr50_05tb19.pdf
62% of ALL black births are paid for by the US government http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/datawh/statab/pubd/2319_69.htm
Blacks are responsible for 40.8% of all domestic violence cases, despite being only 13% of the population. See page 28: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/vi.pdf
Though only 12% of the population, blacks take 38.3% of the total of all welfare payments. Whites are 72% of the population, and take 30.5% of the total. http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/vi.pdf
Though only 12% of the population, blacks take 38% of taxpayer-subsidized housing http://www.huduser.org/datasets/ass...96/descript.htm
JOURNAL OF BLACKS IN HIGHER EDUCATION http://www.jbhe.com/ But income alone does not explain the racial scoring gap. Consider these facts: Whites from families with incomes of less than $10,000 had a mean SAT score of 980. This is 123 points higher than the national mean for all blacks. Whites from families with incomes below $10,000 had a mean SAT test score that was 46 points higher than blacks whose families had incomes of between $80,000 and $100,000. Blacks from families with incomes of more than $100,000 had a mean SAT score that was 142 points below the mean score for whites from families at the same income level.
The disparity in interracial murder rates is astounding. For every 100,000 White people, how many do you think kill blacks? And for every 100,000 negroes, how many do think kill Whites? Let's find out... Kill ratios Averaged for Five Years
Year Black on White White on Black
1994 1306 469
1995 1110 454
1996 1077 417
1997 974 343
1998 839 362
Total 5306 2045
Average 1061.2 409
White Population in *thousands*
1998 - 223,001
1997 - 221,317
1996 - 219,623
1995 - 218,010
1994 - 216,365
Total 1,098,316,000
Average 219,663,200
Black Population in *thousands*
1998 - 34,431
1997 - 33,973
1996 - 33,518
1995 - 33,098
1994 - 32,654
Total 167,674,000
Average 33,534,800
Black average of White murders / Black average population per 100,000
1061 / 33,534,800 x 100,000 = 3.16
White average of Black murders / White average population per 100,000
409 / 219,663,200 x 100,000 = 0.186 3.16/0.186 = 16.99
BLACKS ARE 17 TIMES (1700%) MORE LIKELY TO KILL WHITES THAN WHITES ARE TO KILL BLACKS
So, do you think the ratios are insignificant? What if White people killed blacks at the same rate that blacks killed whites?? Let x = dead negroes killed between 1994-2003 x / 219,663,000 x 100,000 = 3.16 x = (3.16)(219,663,000) / 100,000 x = 6941 per year 6941 x 10 years = 69,410 dead negroes
This is over TEN THOUSAND MORE DEATHS THAN WERE SUFFERED BY AMERICANS DURING THE ENTIRE VIET NAM WAR.
Sources: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/ovrace.txt http://www.census.gov/population/es.../intfile3-1.txt
Liberals often try to blame Black violence on poverty. The Census data, however, disproves that hypothesis. How? In 1995, among the American poor, there were 16.3 million Whites (real ones), 10.0 million Blacks, 8.6 million "Hispanics," and 1.4 million Asians. Blacks comprised about 27.6% of the American poor. Those poverty numbers can be verified at http://www.census.gov/population/es.../intfile3-1.txt http://www.census.gov/hhes/poverty/pov95/povest1.html
During that year, Blacks committed about 54% of all US murders. Remember that the FBI, from whom the murder information comes, counts "Hispanics" as "Whites," making the total number of poor persons eligible to be committing murders as "Whites" about 24.8 million. These "Whites" comprised 68.5% of the American poor, but committed - at most - only 46% of 1995 US murders, if we make the doubtful assumption that Asians and Amerindians committed none. The evidence argues against the liberal hypothesis that poverty causes crime.
Rape is an economic crime if liberals are willing to admit that women are merchandise or "goods", and that men are compelled to take them because they're impoverished, and not criminal scum.
See page 10 - http://www.census.gov/hhes/poverty/pov95/povest1.html
The racial distribution of arrestees for rape is similar to the racial distribution for all violent UCR arrests ? 56% of arrestees for rape in 1995 were white, 42% were black, and 2% were of other races.
The population of all races - approx. 275,617,000 White 226,563,000 Black 35,392,000 226,563,000/275,617,000 = 82.2% of Whites in America 35,392,000/275,617,000 = 12.8% of Blacks in America
Child abuse- Sexual All types Sexual Total
Whites 64.8% 54.8% 17,978 139,480
Blacks 19.2% 30.8% 5,399 78,339
Sources: http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/cb...s96/table25.htm
White total child abuse per 100,000: 139,480/2265.63 = 61.6
Black total child abuse per 100,000: 78,339/353.92 = 221.4
Now let's divide the smaller White rate into the larger black rate to get a comparison: 221.4/61.6 = 3.6
***Blacks are 3.6 times MORE LIKELY to abuse their children then Whites.***
White sexual child abuse per 100,000 (226,563,000/100,000 = 2265.63): 17,978/2265.63 = 7.94
Black sexual child abuse per 100,000 (35,392,000/100,000 = 353.92): 5399/353.92 = 15.25
Now let's divide the smaller White rate into the larger black rate to get a comparison: 15.25/7.94 = 1.9
***Blacks are 1.9 times MORE LIKELY to sexually abuse their children than Whites.***
It's almost impossible to adopt white babies in America. http://www.census.gov/population/es.../intfile3-1.txt
Population Figures:
Year - White / Black (in thousands)
1990 - 209,196 / 30,629
1991 - 210,975 / 31,137
1992 - 212,874 / 31,683
1993 - 214,691 / 32,195
1994 - 216,379 / 32,672
avg. 212,823 / 31,663
Now let's look at the race of children awaiting adoption from that same period. http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/cb/dis/vcis/iv19a.htm
Year - White / Black
1990 - 9,801 / 8,159
1991 - 10,193 / 9,650
1992 - 11,137 / 11,170
1993 - 11,538 / 12,199
1994 - 16,496 / 20,234
Avg 11,833 / 12,282
White Average of Children Awaiting Adoption per 100,000: 11,833/2128.23 = 5.56
Black Average of Children Awaiting Adoption per 100,000: 12,282/316.63 = 38.79
Black Average divided by White Average to get a rate comparison: 38.79/5.56 = 6.98
A BLACK CHILD IS SIX TIMES (600%) MORE LIKELY TO BE AWAITING ADOPTION THAN A WHITE CHILD.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/771271.stm
Africa's problems Roads: only 16% paved Telephones: 10 per 1000 Electricity: 80% lack access Aids: 35m infected Sanitation: inadequate for 75% of rural population
Source: Can Africa Claim the 21st Century
The bank says the total combined income of 48 countries in Africa is little more than that of Belgium. In the last 40 years, average incomes per person in Africa have stagnated while they have grown in most of the rest of the world. Africa now accounts for only 1% of the total world economic output and 2% of world trade. On average, African countries have economies smaller than a town of 60,000 people in a rich country. With only 10m telephone lines, half of them in South Africa, there is little chance of most Africans gaining access to the internet. Africa has fewer roads than Poland, only 16% of which are paved, and only one in five households has access to electricity. Two-thirds of rural Africans lack adequate water supplies, while three quarters lack adequate sanitation. 56% of black women have genital herpes!!! See page 21 of... http://www.cdc.gov/nchstp/dstd/Stat.../Trends2000.pdf http://www.ashastd.org/news/031699.html
Particularly hard hit in the herpes epidemic are African Americans, with nearly a 46% prevalence.? Clearly, concerted prevention efforts are badly needed. ?Fleming, DF, et al. Herpes Simplex Virus Type 2 in the United States, 1976 to 1994. The New England Journal of Medicine, 1997; 227(16): 1105-1111. http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/short/337/16/1105
Results From 1988 to 1994, the seroprevalence of HSV-2 in persons 12 years of age or older in the United States was 21.9 percent (95 percent confidence interval, 20.2 to 23.6 percent), corresponding to 45 million infected people in the noninstitutionalized civilian population. The seroprevalence was higher among women (25.6 percent) than men (17.8 percent) and higher among blacks (45.9 percent) than whites (17.6 percent). see page 11 http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_23/sr23_022.pdf
Black Women Least Likely to Marry From staff and wire reports Posted July 25, 2002 -- Black women are least likely to marry and most likely to divorce, with more than half splitting within 15 years, according to a new survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. By age 30, 81 percent of White women have been married compared to 52 percent of Black women. The survey of 11,000 women suggests that part of the problem is a lack of men in the "marriageable pool," with disproportionate numbers of Black men unemployed or incarcerated. http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/pubs/facts/afam.htm
The AIDS diagnosis rate among African Americans was almost 11 times the rate among whites. African-American women had a 23 times greater diagnoses rate than white women. African- American men had almost a 9 times greater rate of AIDS diagnosis than white men. Liberia was founded by freed U.S. slaves 158 years ago. It is a black country in Africa. It has had literally dozens upon dozens of violent government overthrows and upheavals. The CIA Factbook says the annual per capita income is $900 (nine hundred) dollars. There are 2,000 cell phones in the entire country. From these facts, we may safely conclude that the lingering effects of slavery and racism last at least 158 years. Source: CIA Factbook for Liberia
Clinton's "blow-by-blow" account of his presidency
Instead, he delivered a blow-by-blow account of his presidency, starting with his decision to jump into the 1992 Democratic primary when "nobody but my wife and my mother thought I had a remote chance," and ending with a long critique of his impeachment and its relative importance to any account of his presidency.
Mr. Clinton emphasized that his "reputation deserved to suffer" for what he called "my misconduct," a reference to his relationship with the White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky.
Man Murdered At 50 Cent's Movie "Get Rich or Die Trying"
Chaim writes: "Note this for the words not contained therein: black, race. I'm going to go see that flick, in a dark room full of dark people."
On Age Differences and Sources of Moral Wisdom
In recent days I've found myself fielding questions from admiring younger women (and far less complimentary sorts of questions from women of a certain age) concerning what is and is not an appropriate age difference between men and women. Perhaps this is part of the Zeitgeist of our uncertain times, or perhaps it arises out of the "May Day - Labor Day" relationship I find myself in. Rather than answer such a question in personal terms, where the base instincts of man often predominate, I shall turn to other sources of moral authority, both great and small.
To begin with, there is The Word - God's Word to Man, the Torah. For every true Jew and Noahide Gentile, this is the ultimate arbiter of what is good and correct. The Torah clearly commands Jewish men (which includes me) to be fruitful and multiply, an act that requires of Jewish men the willing cooperation of fecund women. Alas, it is a medical fact that the most fertile women are the young ones, so I am compelled to look past the wisdom and many virtues of my female peers (most of whom are really wonderful, amazing women who are too good for the likes of me anyway), and instead force myself to make do with the younger more fertile women of the "do me NOW!" generation.
In years past, this would have been a recipe for social disaster, as men of my years and low social status are infamous for our inability to properly satisfy the younger woman. But thanks to modern pharmacology, most of the deficiencies of advancing years can be corrected. Levitra keeps my erections hard, Rogaine keeps my mane of hair full, and Zoloft keeps my mood steady. And I'm working at whipping my sperm into shape, too, so that should they be fortunate enough to happen upon a fertile woman's egg, they will get right down to business and do me a mitzvah: zinc and folic acid dietary supplements instead of booze, and boxers instead of briefs. For men, 39 truly is the new 24.
I well realize that many of you are Godless, rootless, secular atheists who care not a whit for the Oral or the Written Laws of God. To you I look to the wisdom of the French, who teach that a man ought marry a woman who is half his age, plus seven years. For a man of thirty nine (like me), this means that I need a woman of 27, depending on how one rounds.
And for those of you who hate both God AND the French, I turn to that New York sage, Chaim Amalek: "Dude, you are so lucky."
When Torah, the French, and Chaim Amalek are all in agreement on a course of action, one can be certain of the correctness of that course of action. 'nuff said.
Sarah Silverman's Biggest Insecurity
My...thighs! They're not what they were when I was 19. They look all right, but you should see them in person. They're, like, covered in some sort of cottage cheese oatmeal-type stuff.
While walking home from an intercultural/transfaith town meeting at the Museum of Tolerance (which is to me what Zabars white fish wrapped in the New York Times is to an Upper West Sider), I had a fascinating discussion with two new friends, "Hillel" and "Shamai." It concerns the ageless question of how much we should have in common with someone before considering them as possible future mates. Hillel took the liberal position that diversity is what makes the world go 'round, and that you don't want to marry someone just like yourself or you will bore yourself to death. Shamai - a harder nosed sort - advanced the opposite school of thought. "In most successful marriages, like marries like. Same religious tradition, same social class, same race, same values. This avoids problems."
I'm not sure where I stand on this, as I can think of all sorts of examples and counterexamples for each school of thought. Perhaps in the end, that Eastern Sage Chaim Amalek is right (for Chaim is usually right): "The heart wants what the heart desires. Love is about sex, and sex is about mixing genes up. Not just 'up' in the sense of 'different', but also 'up' in the sense of 'better' as well. That's why so many Jewish men of distinction from Moses to Spielberg have fallen in love with gentile women."
Hillel versus Shamai - who can say who is right?
For Lauren Winner and Anna Broadway, married sex is the only sex
Lauren Winner (laurenwinner.net) is an unlikely poster girl for abstinence before marriage. Forget images of nuns, scolds, and dowdy politicians. She wears cat's-eye glasses, sparkly tights, and a charming smile. As we chat, our camaraderie is surprising; after all, her book Real Sex: The Naked Truth About Chastity argues that the only good, honest, and moral sex is between a man and woman married to each other. Somehow, despite our differences, I'm at ease with Winner and can listen openly.
When I start to say "But I'm a feminist," she interrupts me: "I'm a feminist too." For her, sex within marriage is sacred, but she also takes the church to task for its sexist teachings and simplistic abstinence campaigns. Winner writes, "In insisting that premarital sex will make you feel bad, the church is misstating the nature of sin. The plain, sad fact is that we do not always feel bad after we do something wrong. To acknowledge that premarital sex might feel good is not to say that premarital sex is good." Other lies Winner blasts the church about: Women lack libido, bodies are gross and disgusting. "Just say no" doesn't work, for sex or drugs, unless you're giving people a better alternative.
Public Relations Now A Part Of Journalism
I met a bunch of journalism students from Cal-State Longbeach Wednesday night at the LA Press Club for a panel discussion on private investigators and journalists.
There were too many people on the panel. It would've been better to have had one journo and one PI and possibly the moderator...
At first I was told the youngies were taking an investigative journalism class. Then it turned out to be "Information Gathering." Not nearly as exciting. I guess they learn about Google and the Dewey Decimal system.
My excitement further diminished when I found out that everyone I talked to was intending to become a "public relations practicioner." They didn't like the word "publicist."
They said the PR major was part of Longbeach's Journalism department. This shocked me. I've always thought of PR as the enemy of journalism. Publicists are paid liars.
"Enemy!" I shouted at the girls.
They thought I was drunk.
Though they didn't say so explicitly, I received the impression that the girls heartily endorsed my use of lithium-money for levitra (I can get one pill of levitra in exchange for three months of lithium).
Luke corrupts Journalism students. Photo by Emmanuelle Richard.
I spent the rest of the night asking people "if Cathy was coming."
It would be her first public appearance since coming out on her blog, but alas, she did not come.
Cathy writes: "Sorry I wasn't there but glad you missed me. The thing is, I was assigned a last minute op-ed from the LA Times on Christian theology, and that's actually the truth."
Chaim Amalek writes: "Jews going into PR hack work is just another sign of the downbreeding of American Jewish life."
Luke: "Yeah, but many/most publicists are hot!"
Chaim: "Where their great-grandfathers were founding studios, these are doing this."
Abuse Most Fowl
November 10, 2005 -- An Orthodox Jewish man was charged with animal cruelty yesterday for causing the drowning deaths of 35 chickens meant for slaughter in a religious ritual and keeping hundreds more in squalid conditions.
Jacob Kalisch, 37, of Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, was named in a complaint filed by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals for mistreating 307 chickens found Oct. 16. They were crammed into wooden crates inside a vacant lot on Coney Island Avenue, sources said.
"Someone said, 'You have to do something about these chickens. They're dying.' We reported it to the police and the ASPCA," said PETA's Martin Mersereau.
Beyond Lavish
November 10, 2005 -- MAZEL tov to 13-year-old Amber Ridinger, who is celebrating her bat mitzvah in a lavish style that puts the spoiled brats on MTV's "My Sweet Sixteen" to shame. Amber's parents, Internet entrepreneurs J.R. and Loren Ridinger, have hired Ja Rule, Ashanti and Omarion to perform at their daughter's party at Miami's Forge nightclub this weekend. The well-heeled Ridingers — who keep a penthouse here at the Ritz-Carlton and dock their 160-foot yacht at Chelsea Piers — also have convinced Mike Piazza to stop by and snagged Nicole Richie's boyfriend, DJ A.M., to man the turntables. We're told that Amber will wear a $27,000 Dolce & Gabbana gown and will debut her own fashion line — Gossip. We like the name.
Why I Hate The Jewish Journal Part XIII
They spend much of the latest issue on California's propositions, which receive more than adequate coverage elsewhere in the mainstream media, and have nothing that is specifically Jewish about them.
The type of propositions I want to read about in the Journal are when some working class guy asks managing editor Amy Klein, "Fancy a shag?"
• I was recently rebuffed by a guy who said, “You’re the type of woman I could bring home to my parents, but my problem is I’m only attracted to stupid, simple women — women whom I’d never socialize with or bring home to my parents.”
He’d go out with these bartenders, dancers — secretaries — for a few months till conversation ran dry and he couldn’t stand the sight of them any longer and then flee like an escaped convict to socialize with the likes of me — people in his “class.” It was not a question of looks.
“You’re just too smart for me,” he said sadly.
Plenty of bartenders, dancers and secretaries are smart. There's nothing dishonorable about these professions, nothing that precludes one who engages in them from smart conversation. Try replacing "bartenders, dancers -- secretaries..." with "Blacks, Latinas, and Guatemalans" to see the stupidity and delusion in Klein's column.
Robert David Jaffee (another writer hired by Editor Rob Eshman who has a good resume but no Jewish expertise, similar to senior staffers Marc Ballon and Howard Blume) writes a puff piece about the relentlessly left-wing documentary filmmaker Robert Greenwald.
There's nothing wrong with writing about filmmakers with an agenda, but Jaffee does nothing to illuminate or challenge Greenwald's.
Over dinner, Michael Kinsley dismissed Greenwald "Out-Foxed" documentary on Fox News as "absolute crap."
Greenwald uses only leftist commentators (and disgruntled ex-Fox employees) to bash Fox, but never bothers to label their political orientation.
Robert Greenwald is Michael Moore without the humor and entertainment.
There are numerous Jewish angles on Greenwald's latest film about Walmart (the documentary frequently quotes a rabbi) but none of them are explored in Jaffee's piece.
Moustapha Akkad Injured In Amman, Jordan Bombings
His 30-year old daughter Reem died.
I interviewed Akkad a few years ago. He talked about the notorious forgery The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion as though it was something real.
What Tom Cruise Can Teach Us About Relationships
Remember that famous interview the little fellow gave on Oprah - the one where he loudly declared his love for the lovely Katie Holmes (who, curiously, is about 27 years old), jumping up and down on her sofa like a small monkey on uppers? Well, when a straight man is genuinely interested in a woman, he keeps things quiet for fear of attracting poachers. So ladies, what Tom Cruise can teach you about your man is this: if he's really serious about you, he will keep things quiet. A virtuous woman has a price far above rubies, and hetero men don't like flashing rubies in public.